Microsoft, Open-Source Community Could Both Avoid Lawsuit Damage

When a U.S. District Court judge in Texas ruled that Microsoft had violated an XML-related patent held by i4i, a small Canadian company, the verdict seemed to potentially threaten both Microsoft and the open-source community.

As part of the verdict, Microsoft was banned from ‚Äúselling, offering to sell, and/or importing in or into the United States any infringing and Future Word Products that have the capability of opening a .DOCX or .DOCM file (‚Äòan XML file‚Äô) containing custom XML.‚Äù Microsoft was given 60 days to yank both Microsoft Word 2003 and Microsoft Word 2007, both of which supposedly violated i4i‚Äôs patent, within 60 days...